Invention Tree - The Most Functional and Advatageous Branch

[finmise]

What is your favourite branch(Invention Tree) and why do you prefer this?
Which one is always fun ?
Which one is the most beneficial in all cases?

You may as well answer tribe, monarchy, republic separately.

 

[Jiben]

Religious.

Stacking happiness modifiers is always good, especially if you play wide. Getting 3% there and 2% there etc migth not feel like much but belive me they stack up after awhile.

Also religious conversion bonuses and a pretty good assimilation/conversion law for monarchies. Makes your country much more homogeneous which is really strong which makes your country happier and increase your levies.

Also the ability to raze temples for stability if you go for mass conquest/wc makes ae pretty much not matter since if you conquer fast enough you will get new temples to raze before your stability gets low.

 

[IsaacCAT]

First Left Civic tree to boost your economy by taxes and commerce.

Second and third simultaneously:

• religious advances to get to Zero: religious happiness and manpower (also grand temple)
• martial advances to get to Cohorts for legions: discipline, reinforcement speed and experience

For buildings:

• Central military tree for Foundry and fortified camps for earthworks
• Left oratory tree for Grand Theatre

Mostly are for MP choices where I am having my fun lately

 

[DukeLeto42]

Oratory tree, left side, leads to Imperial Conquest, at once the best and worst CB in the entire game. It also has AE reductions and the Grand Theatre, so for rapid expansion it's a must.

 

[Terixis]

IMO the religious tree is the best overall, it pretty much keeps your country stable with conversion bonuses, state religion happiness, unintegrated culture happiness, and gives access to the religious/cultural conversion laws for monarchies. And it has the +2% levy size invention, the only one in the game.

Right Civic tree (especially with a hellenic culture accepted) also has a bunch of amazing inventions. Left Oratory tree is mandatory for grand theaters, early game AE control, and imperial challenge for blobbing after you've already taken the religious and civic inventions to keep your empire stable.

If you're playing tall the left Civic tree is the best since it'll make you a ton of money, and you can slack on religious ideas since you won't be expanding into wrong religion/culture group land that will be unhappy.

Honestly one of the best things about Imperator is how well balanced the tech trees are. Everything has a use depending on what you're doing. Except the naval tree, because naval tech being useless is a paradox tradition. And the right oratory tree is pretty useless too.

 

[Herennius]

It may be also worth to search for some older threads with the search - there are several dealing with invention preferences/choices and as vanilla IR wasn't changed anymore since 2.03, the insights there are likely still valuable. Here is a link to the longest: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/civic-inventions-tree-preference.1458042/

 

[olivenkranz]

... Except the naval tree, because naval tech being useless is a paradox tradition. And the right oratory tree is pretty useless too.

In mp, the naval tree can actually be very useful.

 

[TheBrilliantBoolean]

Depends on the playstyle of the run:
-For early wars as small powers e.g Sparta vs Macedon you have to focus on army quality (left mil tree) because it will determine future expansion oppertunities.

-For larger nations and those expanding into many non-state-religion and unintegrated culture group areas I push for the left religious branch to get cultural disemination, levy size and happiness as well as grand temple

-For subject states or city states I get the free pops from the right branch of oratory tree to boost early levies and tech rate and loyalty for PI gain

-For diplomatic runs, I push for the left oratory tree to vassalize minor nations and conquer rapidly

-For tall runs I grab the foundry and push for the right civic branch to get city found cost/building slots.

-For tribes I usually push left civic to kickstart my trade economy

I love the flexibility and intricacies of the I:R tech system, so many different ways to play and many metas. Though more cultural techs/balance would be interesting, its good Invictus has been focusing on that.